Dentists Stanley Hirst and Bethany Jensen will begin an expanded dental practice in Minot. Hirst has had an established practice in Minot for 28 years, and his daughter will now join him in the practice at a new location.
"Within the last three to five years, some of my colleagues and I were looking at how many dentists were retirement age, and we realized we need people to replace them," Hirst said. "There is some concern about that and still is, especially with Minot's increased potential for growth."
"I'm not retiring for awhile yet but I am in the latter side of my career," he added. "Dr. Jensen will be a welcome addition to the practice."
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Katina Tengesdal/MDN - - Dentists Bethany Jensen, left, and Stanley Hirst, right, consult together about a patient’s care in their expanded dentistry practice called Broadway Family Dentistry.
As the two enter practice together, the current office will be moved to offer more space. The practice will be moving from the current location at 116-1st St SW to 1839 S Broadway. The practice, now called Broadway Family Dentistry, will begin seeing patients at the new location later this week.
The practice will be tripling in size, going from three operatories to nine operatories.
"We're trying to provide better comprehensive care within our office, and with more chairs it will make our services more efficient," Jensen said.
The services currently available at Broadway Family Dentistry include restorative and preventative dentistry, cosmetic dentistry, teeth whitening, jaw and facial pain, root canals, dentures, dental implants, laser therapy and extractions. Both Jensen and Hirst are interested in expanding into dental specialties with continuing education.
Hirst is currently pursuing a series of courses in neuromuscular dentistry, focusing on the relationship between the jaw and tooth positions and chronic headaches and facial pain. He is also looking to gain more experience on sleep apnea and its relationship to dentistry.
Providing services
"We don't have an endodontist in town anymore and our oral surgeons and orthodontists are getting saturated with patients. All of the guys in town are trying to provide more services," Hirst said.
"We recognize that there is a roadblock in trying to improve services for patients in Minot, and we have severe cases that we refer on, but we're trying to do more of it in our office," he added.
As a recent graduate from Creighton University School of Dentistry, Jensen has received awards in the fields of general dentistry, periodontics and oral pathology. Jensen is interested in pursuing further education in endodontics and the treatment of periodontal disease.
Both hope to add unique perspectives to the practice and diversify the practice through their collaboration.
"I look forward to working with Dr. Jensen. I have the experience but I'm also interested in the most recent academic perspective of dentistry," Hirst said. "It will be interesting to get Dr. Jensen's perspective on what they're saying now, and improve the services based on the information she's providing."
"I think the clinical collaboration will be a good thing for both of us," Jensen said. "We'll be able to have another dentist there to bounce ideas off of."